UN efforts to evacuate about 100 aid workers from eastern Lakes State have been blocked by local authorities, according to NGO and UN sources in Yirol and Juba.
National and foreign aid organizations have been working to provide medical, sanitation, shelter and other services in Awerial County for a huge population of people who fled from violence in neighboring Jonglei.
The organizations sent their staff away from Awerial by road on Wednesday after clashes between government and opposition forces in Kalthok, a village in the county that had been sheltering several thousand displaced people.
Wounded fighters began arriving midday on Wednesday from Kalthok to Minkamen, the epicenter of the aid effort in Awerial County. Soon thereafter the aid workers scrambled to organize a convoy of Land Cruisers in order to escape the area.
By evening the convoy carrying about 120 expatriate and national relief workers reached Yirol, a town about midway between Minkamen and the state capital Rumbek.
The relief workers put up at the UN County Support Base in Yirol town. On the following day, Thursday, three UN helicopters landed near the base on a mission to evacuate the aid workers back to Juba.
Most but not all of the humanitarian workers likely planned to take the evacuation flights, since some NGOs may have wanted workers to proceed with their vehicles by road to Rumbek or to stay in Yirol.
After the UN helicopters landed security forces in the area reportedly summoned one of the relief officials to a meeting with the commissioner of Yirol, who forbid the aid workers from evacuating either by air or by road.
The UN sent its helicopters empty back to Juba. It was not immediately clear why the local authorities blocked the evacuation, but it may be that they wished the aid organizations to return to their work at various sites in Awerial County.
It is reported that the fighting in Awerial County involved defected troops who were trying to make their way north from Central Equatoria into one of the opposition-held states, likely Unity State, or Jonglei.
Sudan Tribune quoted the Yirol West County commissioner Majak Ruei Angong as saying the deserters had come from Juba and were hiding in Jebel Lado area until Tuesday night, when they were flushed out by an SPLA attack.
Rebel deserters then fled the area towards Lakes state, with the aim of crossing into Unity State along the River Nile, Sudan Tribune reported.
It added also that Lakes state Governor Maj-Gen Matur Chut Dhuol has temporarily relocated his office to Yirol West County to monitor the security situation in the three counties of Greater Yirol, composed of Awerial, Yirol West and Yirol East.
Aid groups that were working in Awerial include Oxfam, Plan, MSF Switzerland, ICRC, and ACTED. The humanitarian coordinator for the United Nations, Toby Lanzer, has made clear that their evacuation would be temporary.
Photo: A UN helicopter transporting wounded civilians from Bor arrives at the airport in Juba, South Sudan, 22 December 2013 (UNMISS)